for some reason the song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ came into my brain a few weeks ago. i did not feel happy, i felt quite worried. i almost felt that the bright melody and peppy snaps were mocking me. the song is bogusly cheerful. the way this man is hiding behind whatever red metal that is on the album cover really cracks me up in the way that sometimes when you’re grumpy and people make you laugh you fight the laugh at first. his face seems to say tee hee i know how audacious my song is and coochy coochy coo what if you relinquish misery. he looks as mischievously gleeful as his silly silly song!
what i’ve been wanting to write about here, in these missives, is how sometimes things happen that make everything feel like it’s going to be alright. in other word, enthusiasm. Valeria Luiselli writes that enthusiasm is “a kind of inner earthquake produced by allowing oneself to be possessed by something larger and more powerful, like a god or goddess..”
an older meaning of god is ‘that which is invoked’ and ‘to call,’ but the key word in that meaning of enthusiasm today is allowing. the shifting (earth or ground within ourselves) is produced by allowing, she says.
allowing the possibility of help, allowing the possibility of change, allowing a power that might deliver.
allowance rather than rigidity, a seemingly herculean but perhaps quite simple choice,
don’t worry.
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